


Off Track

by Canocanopus



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Drama, Friendship, Gen, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Romance??????, but they all appeared in the mv so you can check it out, i don't know what else to tag sorry, i'm sorry if you don't recognize the gears i mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27559036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canocanopus/pseuds/Canocanopus
Summary: Seungmin is not that good in writing scripts for films yet, but it doesn't take a good writer to know that he basically got himself involved in a real-life school drama.Or, when the film club's first ever production went off track and led them to an unhappy ending.
Kudos: 5
Collections: STRAY KIDS MV FICFEST





	Off Track

**Author's Note:**

> written for skz mv ficfest, with the main inspiration from mixtape: on track mv!

“Oh? Kim Seungmin, is that really you?”

Seungmin froze, after taking only a few steps from the entrance of his classroom, to find a boy staring at him with his eyes widened, the bewildered look on his face almost looked comical. He squinted his eyes first, unable to see clearly without his glasses that he had perfectly forgotten to bring from home. The voice sounded like it belonged to someone really close to him, but he had to confirm his guess first.

“Bang Chan?” Seungmin asked in disbelief, finally recognizing the slightly blurry face from afar. He laughed as the other boy, all-too-familiar to him yet his presence is still a surprising addition to his first week at high school, proceeded to approach him with slightly bouncy steps and the widest grin Seungmin has ever seen from a human being.

“Woah, I can’t believe we’re in the same school again! How have you been?” Chan questioned him, still hasn’t wiped the smile off his face.

“Great, I guess. Never wanted to graduate from middle school though, but who am I to deny the existence of time?” Seungmin shrugged his shoulders. “Speaking of it, do you still continue making films here? I still want to do what we did with the club back then.”

“Oh, great timing! I was just talking about it.” Chan gestured him to follow, then walked back to his friend who was walking beside him before, this one Seungmin can’t recognize.

“Sorry for leaving you here.” Chan let out a sheepish laugh, before putting his hand on Seungmin’s shoulder.

“This is Kim Seungmin, my junior from the film club in middle school. Oh, and he writes great stories!” Chan hurriedly added. “See the notebook he’s carrying? He always jots down any ideas that suddenly came up to him.”

“No, it’s just a notebook to write down random stuff,” Seungmin denied in a hurry, quickly hiding the notebook in his hand behind his back. Chan didn’t lie about the things he just said, but Seungmin didn’t really feel like it should be important enough to be spread around strangers, and Seungmin _definitely_ didn’t think his stories are as good as Chan thought.

“A potential scriptwriter, huh?” The unfamiliar friend flashed a smile at him, his previously bored expression had lightened up.

“Lee Minho, second year,” he said while extending his hand, which Seungmin automatically shook firmly, “and it might be too soon to say this but I think you are the person we’re looking for right now.”

Seungmin was, quite clearly, taken aback from the sudden statement. He turned to stare at Chan, who’s still smiling widely, hoping that his eyes conveyed enough of his confusion for his senior to notice. Chan said nothing but to take his hand and started walking, with Minho quickly following and kept his pace to match his slightly shorter friend.

“Where are we going?” Seungmin questioned, although he didn’t really wish for an answer as his previous attempt to get an explanation was ignored as well. Either that or Chan had lost his ability to notice even the slightest bit of discomfort from people around him. Or maybe Seungmin didn’t look confused enough.

“You’ll figure it out soon,” Chan answered with excitement. “Oh, and don’t worry about not being able to eat for the lunch break. Changbin always buys too many food, he probably has enough for the others too. Thankfully we got the mini fridge now.”

“Who is Changbin? Who are the others? What fridge? Seriously, what is going on?”

The three exited the main school building and crossed the open area that stands between the main building and what Seungmin learned in the school tour at the beginning of the week as the building with rooms for the school’s clubs, which was on the direction his two seniors lead him to. As they entered, Seungmin looked around quickly and found out that the inside was pretty much like the main school building, except that there were fewer people walking around.

Seungmin followed his seniors as they turned left and walked through the corridor. He could hear someone playing the piano from one of the rooms they passed by, and someone shouting what sounded like a line from a famous English play from another room. Seungmin was too caught up on guessing the clubs based on the voices coming out from the rooms, he almost bumped onto Chan who had stopped all of a sudden.

“This,” Minho spoke up, gesturing his hand to the door in front of him, “ is where we’re going to.”

He knocked four times before opening the door, which Seungmin found weird because why did he even knock if he’s going to open the door himself? Then he noticed Chan stepping aside, tilting his head towards the door. Seungmin stared at the now-half opened door, his eyes caught on the sticker of a black film roll with ‘Short Film Club’ written on it.

There were five more boys inside, Seungmin counted, all chatting lively with each other while sitting around a table on the centre of the room covered with scattered papers, a few laptops and external hard disk drives, and lots of plastic bags filled with food bought from the school’s cafeteria. Seungmin could recognize some of them, including the cream bread cones he bought on his first day at school and had now become his favourite. Chan and Minho greeted the other boys, and the room gradually became a lot more loudly than before.

The interesting part from this new environment, other than the seven people who didn’t sound like they know the volume of a normal indoor voice, was the fact that Seungmin felt like he got instantly thrown back 3 decades in the past. He saw a complete set of old computer on the table at the corner of the room, the model of the hardwares looked similar to the computer his father used when he was.... four? Five? He was still a small child when he last saw it. Next to it was an even older form of technology: a film roll projector. Seungmin had only seen it in movies and series set in the 90s, never had he ever thought that he would actually see the real thing with his own eyes.

There were also some old cameras, stacks of film reel cans, tube TVs, tape decks, VCR players, tape recorders, even a video walkman. Seungmin couldn’t recognize half of the stuff in the room, not even the knowledge he got from sleepless nights of watching videos of retro technology and video production on the internet could help him name all of it. Everything looked so outdated but also brand new at the same time, due to all of the devices seemingly still in good condition. Well, almost everything. Seungmin finally noticed the mini fridge Chan mentioned earlier, set on the table before the window next to a small water dispenser.

“What’s with the retro concept?” Seungmin muttered in awe.

“Hate to burst your bubbles, but we never planned for any concept whatsoever,” Minho told him. “As you may have known, Chan easily befriended everyone, including this school’s caretaker. Last semester, he saw the caretaker carrying a stack of reel cans to be thrown away, and his curiousity led him to this previously abandoned room filled with all these old devices that the caretaker still regularly took care of. He immediately got interested, got some spare keys to this room, dragged me and Changbin in to reach the minimum amount of club members, then applied to the school to bring back the film club. The rest is history.”

“Okay, listen up,” Chan raised his voice, causing the chatterings to lower down their volume. A smile grew on Seungmin’s face. So this one ability of Chan, to control the room he’s in with his charisma, hadn’t gone away yet.

“I know we just had our first meeting two days ago, but I need to address some important topics today, so I call for an emergency meeting right now.”

“Vote for Felix, he’s sus,” said the boy with a blue hoodie underneath his blazers while nodding towards the boy sitting across him, followed by muffled waves of laughter here and there.

“No, we’re not kicking anyone out.” Chan let out a giggle. “Instead, we’re adding someone else in.”

As if on cue, seven pairs of eyes turned their gaze towards the same person. That poor boy, not used to suddenly being the source of attention from strangers, shifted his weight uncomfortably. Not knowing what to do, Seungmin stood still, only flashing an awkward smile and a quick nod. Both his hands gripped on his notebook tightly from being anxious.

“This is Kim Seungmin, and he’s a first-year just like most of you,” Chan introduced. “We knew each other from our middle school’s film club, and he’s the unexpected, yet perfect answer to the problem we discussed in the previous meeting.”

“No way.” The blue hoodie boy widened his round eyes, his expression almost made Seungmin laugh if only he didn’t care about giving a proper first impression. “We found a scriptwriter?”

“And a great one at that,” Chan added, his wide grin returned to his face. “He wrote the script for the last short film I directed for the club before I graduated. Scored first place in a national competition.”

“Nice,” a voice commented shortly, followed by nods of approval from many heads in the room.

“Chan may have made me sound like a scriptwriting prodigy, but I’m honestly not that good, really,” Seungmin uttered, shaking his head to underline the last part of his speech. “So if you want me to write for whatever project you have, don’t expect it to be anything mindblowing.”

“No worries, we’re all amateurs here anyway,” Minho responded calmly. “Anyways, since we’re lowkey recruiting you into the club - I don’t take no for an answer, by the way - maybe we should get to know each other first. Mind to give him some names?”

“Oh, right. I’m Seo Changbin, second year.” The boy with white jacket waved from his seat at the end of the table. “To make things short, I’ll do the team intro for you. Blue hoodie, Han Jisung. Cardigan, Lee Felix. Long hair, Hwang Hyunjin. Baby face, Yang Jeongin. All first years, but they joined by handing in club application forms, so they came in two days earlier than you.”

“Hey, what do you mean long hair? Sure you don’t wanna get your eyes checked?” Hyunjin protested while pinching the ends of his bangs.

“To be fair, your hair _is_ the longest among us all,” Felix stated.

“Anyways,” Chan raised his voice again, making the room fell in silence once more, “Jisung, you were the one who proposed the idea. If you don’t mind giving a brief summary to our new friend here, please.”

Jisung nodded, then reached below the table to grab his backpack and fumbled around the inside before pulling out a bright yellow plastic folder. He quickly pulled a single paper then placed it on the table, pushing it towards Seungmin. It’s an application form for a competition, apparently.

“There will be a national short film competition coming up soon, and the winner will have their film played on a huge indie film festival at the end of the year,” Jisung explained with excitement. “There are no requirements for the entries. No specified genres or topics, and no restrictions either, so we can basically show explicit depictions of violence and they won’t mind.”

“No, there is one rule for sure, we have to keep the length between 3 to 30 minutes,” Hyunjin jumped in the conversation.

“Okay, _almost_ no requirements,” Jisung fixed himself. “And, to write down in the form what makes our submitted film unique and will be considered different from other submissions.”

“That most of us have next to zero experiences and we just want to try our luck?” Seungmin guessed playfully.

“Of course not! Well, that’s not a lie but no.” Jisung laughed, then he waved his arms around. “We’re surrounded by authentic vintage stuff! Retro is on the trend nowadays, and we can make a retro-style film using these old production gears. I mean, what are the chances that you will find another amateur contestant using VHS camcorders or Super8 cameras? We can learn how to use them first, then shoot our film using these gears and include the making process during the credit roll, so people can see that we’re not just recreating the style, we’re actually doing it the old-fashioned way!”

“As good as it may sound, we still lack the creative input for the film itself,” Jeongin, who had been quiet since the discussion started, added in. “We had a brainstorming session for the story, but we still haven’t found anything good enough. Now that you’re here, maybe you can help us out.”

“Well, this needs a _very creative_ mind, since no boundaries also mean a bigger possibility to let your mind roam too far and ended up having too many ideas,” Seungmin stated. “But sometimes you don’t have to think too much of it. A classic school romance drama can be good enough if you know how to write it.”

“Well, do you know how to?” Minho questioned.

“I can try.” Seungmin waved his notebook, a wide smile spread across his face. “I think I have a few similar plot ideas here, so give me tonight to write down a rough draft. For the female lead actress, if you still don’t have any candidates, I’ll try contacting a classmate of mine. She mentioned that she would love to try acting soon, but she didn’t get into the lineup for the theatre club’s next play. She might have time for us.”

“See? He’s the perfect answer for us,” Chan spoke out in a satisfied tone.

“Next, we plan out the crew for this project. Changbin told me that he would be the producer for our next project, so that’s one member done. Now,” Minho paused, clapping his hand once as he gazed around the room, “who wants to be the director?”

The shouting that came afterwards startled Seungmin, now left unnoticed as four people had sprung from their seat in intense fighting over the position with the most rights of authority. Seungmin silently slipped into one of the vacant seats on the table, at the end of the table near Changbin’s place.

“Are you sure they’re all new members? You all seemed like old friends,” Seungmin commented, raising his voice a bit since the loud chaos would drown his normal speaking volume.

“I don’t know, we hit it off pretty well since the first day, so I guess they adapted quickly,” Changbin replied with a lighthearted laugh. “Oh, and our club only has a regular meeting scheduled on Tuesdays after school, so we all just come here to have fun for the rest of the week. Welcome aboard.”

Seungmin only flashed a smile, looking disinterested even when he felt like screaming from the excitement on the inside. He grabbed a cream bread cone from among the food scattered across the table, quickly opening the plastic wrapper and munched on it, the smile he had tried to conceal finally came out as he tasted just the perfect amount of sweetness exploding in his mouth. He didn’t catch Changbin’s stare at him, who later only shook his head at the sight of the new member chewing down the bread like an excited puppy who just got a treat.

Not a bad intro for his high school years.

The rest of the week passed by quickly. After his draft got accepted, Seungmin became busy on improving his script, coming to the club room everyday to discuss on the preparation process. His classmate, the potential lead actress, also had agreed to join the project, which automatically gave him the double position as her assistant alongside his initial job as the writer. The pre-production period had been quite easy to handle so far, and he was relieved for that.

“So I only have the script reading today, right?” his classmate asked. It was Monday the week after, and the club had decided to invite her to their meeting so she can get familiar with them first.

“Yes, and I will introduce you to the other actors and the rest of the crew too,” Seungmin confirmed. “They may be a little loud for you, but you know boys.”

“Why do you say that as if you’re not one?” She laughed as the two stopped in front of the club’s door. Seungmin knocked four times - the others had told him it’s a signal that a club member is coming - then opened the door. The room was still as messy as always, although Seungmin didn’t really expect for a sudden cleaning day just because a girl is coming.

“Hey guys,” Seungmin greeted casually. Everyone else in the room paused mid-conversation to look at him, and his classmate behind, before letting out slightly awkward laughs and greetings. Seungmin rolled his eyes, not believing that his new friends would be this lame in front of girls.

“So, here’s our lead actress who will read the script with us today.” Seungmin stepped aside to allow her step forward, which she did before giving a quick bow. “Heo Nara, class 1-B.”

Seungmin chose to start preparing on the copies of the script as the rest of the members introduced themselves. Ah, if only he had decided to join in the talk between them, he might have caught on two people in the room, having a similar fond look on their eyes as they silently stared at the lead actress. He might have been aware of the rising point of a real-life drama, more intense than what he had written in his script.

If only he knew that things will not be as easy as it was at this point. That poor boy.

“How’s it going with your practice?”

“Great! The story is really nice, makes me can’t wait for the shooting. You really should show me more of your stories, Seungmin,” Nara commented cheerfully, turning around in her seat in front of Seungmin’s and waved her script filled with colourful highlighted lines and notes. Seungmin couldn’t help but to feel bubbling with pride inside, it always felt nice when someone compliments his stories, although this is something that he would never openly admit.

“Everyone’s been really nice and helpful too! Especially Minho and Hyunjin, they even bought me food and drinks when I came to practice my lines yesterday.”

“They did?” Seungmin questioned doubtfully. He went home straight after school to finish all his homework yesterday, so he didn’t come to the club room. Weird for him to hear them both behave all warmly like that already to her when Seungmin himself hadn’t become that close to the two yet, and it’s been two weeks since he joined the club. Well, maybe they just tried their best to make her comfortable while working with them.

“Yes! Jeongin helps me a lot too, although he’s shyer than the other two. I would love to actually be friends with him, not just with his character in this film,” Nara added, although this time with a more unsatisfied expression on her face. “Oh, and they said you will be some sort of my manager?”

“Yes, they made me the talents’ PA, since we know each other closer.” Seungmin nodded. “It means production assistant, anyway, so if you need any help you can just ask me. I’d even fetch drinks and take care of your bag and phone for you during the shooting, since my job as the writer is basically done already.”

“Oh, I won’t trouble you that much, but thank you,” Nara responded cheerfully. Seungmin needed to pause their conversation as their teacher had entered the room, but he still couldn’t pause his train of thoughts after hearing what his friend said just now. He kinda had a suspicion regarding Minho and Hyunjin, but all he could do was to pray that he guessed wrong. He didn’t want their first project to be cancelled because of trivial things like that.

If only he knew. That poor boy.

“Producer, art director, wardrobe, all present, done. Bang Chan?”

“Sound department present, boom mic ready!”

“Great, don’t get your feet tangled up with the wires like you did last week. Hwang Hyunjin?”

“Director, DP, check. Cameras are ready too.”

“Okay, remember to not just run around while holding your camera, don’t trip on something and hurt yourself. Lee Felix?”

“Assistant director, continuity person, right here!”

“Nice, please help Hyunjin a lot today, you can take shifts in directing if he’s tired with cameras. Han Jisung?”

“Gaffer here, lights all in, and why are you calling us with our names instead of our positions?”

“If you haven’t noticed yet, which would be weird, almost all of us have multiple roles, so it’s easier to call one name each time instead of calling three positions. Also, don’t forget to wear your gloves all the time. Now, Kim Seungmin?”

“Scripts ready, talents’ PA ready to assist,” Seungmin responded, waving his notebook and script at one hand and a pair of handheld fans at the other. “The actors are all ready too.”

He turned his head towards the gazebo nearby, occupied with the only people wearing uniforms among them. Nara was busy practising her lines with Minho as the main actor, while Jeongin was busy memorizing his lines on his own. Seungmin couldn’t help but feel uneasy on the way Minho’s eyes lingered way too long on Nara, whose own eyes were too glued on the script in her hands to notice it. What he felt was not jealousy, Seungmin was certain on that. More like.... worry, he’d say.

Seungmin turned his gaze towards the members working as the crew, currently busy setting up their gears. Changbin was checking on the additional costumes (all their uniforms that he borrowed) and gears in his rack trolleys, occasionally writing down on his list of inventory. Chan was adjusting the boom mic on his hand while having a discussion with Jisung, who was also in the middle of setting the height of the lighting gears.

Then he laid his eyes on Hyunjin, talking with Felix but having his attention on something else far away, the frown on his face grew more visible as time passed. He turned to Felix and cut him mid-talk, then walked towards the gazebo, now with a lighter expression.

“Seungmin, can you explain a bit more about the specific mood you want for this scene?” He heard Felix approaching him with the question. Seungmin couldn’t continue his silent observation, but as he explained the needed details to the assistant director, again he prayed inside for things to go well today. They had prepared the shooting for a month now, and Seungmin didn’t want their hard work to go to waste now.

The first scene they were going to shoot was located on the open area between the main school building and the clubs’ building. It was hard to get permission to shoot their film in the school area on the weekend, and Seungmin could never be grateful enough that they succeeded in it. The trees and garden blocks around them helped to create a nice environment suitable for this scene, where he wrote the male lead, the female lead, and her best friend running away as an attempt to skip class without getting caught and go outside the school to have fun.

“Alright, everyone in position now,” Hyunjin called, standing near the actors while trying to focus his camera. “Clear the path, make sure Chan and I won’t bump into anyone. You three, just keep on running until I say ‘cut’. Lights?”

“On!” Jisung shouted from his place while patting on the lamp beside him.

“Audio?”

“Rolling!” Chan pressed the button on the mic before raising it above in front of the actors.

“Camera is rolling.... now.” Hyunjin positioned his camera to shoot Felix with the clapperboard. “Slate, please.”

“’Even a Fool Knows’, day one, roll one, scene six, take one.” Felix clapped the slate and ran out of frame, approaching Seungmin who was sitting on the gazebo.

“Action!” Hyunjin cued. Minho took Nara’s hand and started to run, followed by Jeongin laughing behind them. Chan ran on the sidepath while keeping his distance in front of the actors, while Hyunjin halted halfway and kept shooting them from behind.

“Cut!” He shouted again. Seungmin stood and approached the director, who kept on glancing back and forth from the camera and to the three people walking back from far.

“Is it not good?” Seungmin asked, assuming his deep frown as a sign of an NG shot.

“No, it’s fine,” Hyunjin replied shortly, still not looking at him. “What do you think?”

Seungmin walked closer to check the footage played on the small screen, although he kept on glancing towards the director beside him. The worry that had been dwelling in Seungmin’s heart gradually grew, now starting to create a crease between his eyebrows as well.

“It looks alright, unlike you,” Seungmin stated. “Did something happen?”

Hyunjin chose to take his eyes off the actors and focus on the recording silently, his face showed no expression at all. Seungmin wanted to ask once again to reassure himself, but his fear of worsening Hyunjin’s mood made him reconsider. So, he decided to pay attention to the recording again, which was a good choice since this time he noticed a major flaw on the take.

“Hey, Seo Changbin, you’re in the frame! Move somewhere else!”

Surprisingly, the team managed to shoot almost all the scenes and extra footages needed before the day ended. Seungmin was surprised to see the chemistry between Minho and Nara, who never had any hesitation in acting their roles, and even more surprised in seeing how Jeongin, the shyest one among all of them, could express the emotions so well in his acting. Seungmin could only wish for him to be able to let out his emotions as outwardly in their daily lives, it’s as if he always tried to contain his feelings and not wanting to share much of them.

The only scene left was the climax point near the end of the story, a classic rooftop confession scene. They weren’t allowed to go to the school’s rooftop, so they had to move to an abandoned parking garage nearby and set up their gears on its rooftop. The sky was a perfectly beautiful blend of Seungmin’s favourite sunset colours. Bright orange and fiery red layers near the horizon with faded baby blue, pastel pink, even light violet above them, in addition to tiny dots of stars starting to appear here and there. He couldn’t contain his happiness and had been acting all giddy since a while ago, not believing their luck in getting such a great scenery for the end of the day.

"Okay, this is the last scene, let’s wrap it up before nightfall!” Changbin spoke out using the rolled-up script like a megaphone, followed by enthusiastic cheerings here and there. Seungmin took the handheld fans and script papers from Nara and Minho then placed them in one of Changbin’s trolleys. On his own copy of the script, he scratched the scene they had shot previously and flipped the pages to the current scene, feeling relieved to see their progress going on very well until now.

“Can you give a brief explanation for the kind of shot you had in mind for this scene?” Hyunjin approached him.

“Shoot their hands as Minho grabbed Nara’s, then you can either cut and change the angle to a bust shot between the two or you just slowly record upwards to their faces.” Again, Seungmin noticed the blank expression on Hyunjin’s face, with both his eyes losing their focus and looking elsewhere. He patted his friend’s shoulder as an attempt to encourage him. “You did great, Hyunjin. We’re almost finished now, you can have your well-deserved rest after this.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, okay, thanks a lot,” Hyunjin mumbled before walking away, leaving Seungmin staring at him from behind with a worried heart.

“Do you think he’s tired?” Jeongin questioned as he stepped close to Seungmin, who still had his eyes on Hyunjin, now calling for the other crew members to stand by.

“I don’t know, honestly. He’s never been like this before, or maybe I never noticed it,” Seungmin admitted. “Can I ask a question? Did anything happened during your practice with Minho and Nara?”

Jeongin only shook his head, unclear whether he had no idea, or he knew about something but was just reluctant to reveal it. He looked like he was going to say anything but quickly closing his slightly opened mouth. One thing for sure, he was just as worried as Seungmin did. Maybe there really was something.

“Hwang Hyunjin, what are you doing?”

His head never turned around that fast, it made the muscle on his neck felt burning. The air suddenly became heavy with tension. Nara looked stunned, Chan and Jisung froze on their places, not knowing whether to turn off their gears or not. Seungmin never saw Minho looked that enraged, he almost thought he forgot that he had written a scene where his character got angry.

“Felix, what is going on?”

“I don’t know, they were taking the scene but Hyunjin just abruptly snapped Minho and Nara’s hands apart.” Felix, who had been standing beside him since after he read the slate for this take, was just as flustered.

“If you don’t like how the take goes, you can just cut it. What’s with that- whatever that was?” Changbin asked, his voice starting to rise. “You haven’t been yourself today as well. What is wrong with you?”

As if he just remembered something, Hyunjin suddenly walked towards Seungmin, who still hadn’t completely grasped the situation. He handed his camera to Felix, the red recording light still flickering, then dashed away from the shooting scene. Jeongin instantly ran after him, yelling his name as both of them disappeared down the ramp to the floor below.

“What should we do?” Felix asked.

“Assistant director, take over,” Chan ordered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into his head, but we’ve come too far to give up here. Minho, Nara, can you continue for a bit more?”

“I think- I think I can,” Nara stuttered, the shock still clearly expressed on her face. She cleared her throat once, then took a deep breath. “I’ll try my best so we can finish in one take.”

Minho only fixed his blazer quietly, no longer looking like he would punch someone but still not calm enough. Seungmin noticed him wriggling his fingers as an attempt to compose himself, and gulped every now and then. Even so, he still managed to put on a wide smile after Felix had taken over the camera, and delivered his lines normally as nothing happened. Nara still had the slightest hint of nervousness in her voice, but maybe it was just Seungmin overanalyzing it.

“Cut,” Felix cued, with relieved sighs here and there coming afterwards. He checked on the recording, then nodded. “Good enough for me. That’s a wrap, then.”

A loud yell came from out of nowhere and grabbed all their attention. Quick to react, Minho practically leapt from where he was standing and sprinted down the ramp to the floor below, Jisung following close behind, shouting at Minho desperately. Seungmin himself was torn between wanting to chase his friends as well and sticking to his job as the assistant, which means staying behind with Nara.

“Seungmin, please take Nara home,” Chan requested. “I’m so sorry you got yourself in this mess. I deeply apologize for all the trouble.”

“No, it’s fine.” Nara shook her head. “It’s still not dark enough, I can walk home by myself. Please take care of Hyunjin first, he needs all of you-”

“Did you find him? What happened?” Changbin’s loud voice made them turn to look at him. He was on the phone, probably with one of the club members that had run after either Hyunjin or Minho. The heavy silence that came after was too long, every ticking second only let Seungmin’s anxiety taking over more of him, now all the thoughts are running wild, panicking alongside him. What caused this to happen, how are they going to continue this project, are they even going to be alright after this, why did they take so long, what if someone got hurt-

“Guys,” Changbin’s wavering voice called them out. Seungmin tried to focus his blurry sight, only to find a pair of widened eyes and a face that had gone pale in fear.

Whatever made him react that way, Seungmin felt like would never be ready to hear it.

He didn’t want his story to meet a climax point that would give him that much pain.

_A car accident had occurred in front of a local high school at 5.37 PM today. Two people involved in the crash are the driver and a high school student, who tried to run across the street and startled the driver, causing him to fail on hitting the brakes. The student had been taken to a nearby hospital, and the police are now investigating the accident and interviewing eyewitnesses around the location-_

But even a fool like him knows, the climax point of a story is inevitable.

**Author's Note:**

> hello, cano here! i first want to apologize for the uncreative title, rushed ending, grammar mistakes, confusing usage of tenses, the boring anticlimactic plot, everything that you find unsatisfying or frustrating from this fic. online learning stressed me out a lot and that resulted in me getting ill many times, including the past three weeks, so i literally rushed my work which resulted in this.... strangely very long word vomit. i tried my best to convey everything i wanted to express from my interpretation of the mv, but i'm still not satisfied with the end result and at this point i don't even wanna blame on english not being my first language and just point the finger at my own stupidity lmao
> 
> anyways! the on track mv is one of my favorites for many reasons. first, it being mistaken as changbin's solo but ended up being revealed as a song that he wrote, so either way yay for this seolar right here. second, the entire film club theme!!! i'm a member of a film club in my uni, so seeing the familiar setting, the crew positions played by the members, and the interesting old-school gears never fails to make me excited everytime i watch it. third, all dark-haired skz in school uniforms experiencing typical high school dramas :D so i hope that even if you don't find this fic enjoyable, you can still share my love for this beautiful song and its equally beautiful mv.
> 
> and with that!!! i want to give it more justice by writing (or at least attempting to write) a part two based on b me, completely as my own project and not a part of the ficfest. until then, have this fic that i had written for all the on track enthusiasts out there! thank you so much for reading until this far, i hope you don't mind leaving a review or two <3 stay safe, wishing for your health and happiness!


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